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In 1938, one baker travelled 7,000 miles by sea and air to show off a commercial wedding cake at the International Bakers and Confectioners Exhibition in London. But couples today don’t have to cross the seven seas to find a perfect dessert for their wedding. The internet offers up enough inspiration for wedding cakes: There are over 500 million cake images on Pinterest alone, from over-the-top versions suspended from the ceiling to elegant two-tier cakes.

This isn’t the traditional fruitcake: wedding cake flavours and styles now take a cue from modern-day dessert menus and food trends, celebrity weddings and the couple’s own ethos. “Sometimes customers will name their favourite chocolate bar and ask for the cake to be created around that,” says Dany McEwan at Marguerite Cakes in Australia. "Snickers is a great example of this."

A photo posted by Лариса (@liquid_oxygen) on Feb 18, 2016 at 4:20am PST

As the wedding season nears, bakers are revamping popular trends like the ombré cake and moulding the birthday favourite funfetti cake into an elegant wedding cake option, with a cascade of sprinkles down the tiers. This wedding season, expect to be served slices of cakes that resemble paintings, layers of salted caramel, floral details, and versions of the enduringly popular ‘naked cake’ with its peek-a- boo layers of icing.

Works of art

With washes of pastel colours and gold accents, watercolour cakes are a key wedding cake trend this year. These cakes feature blended swatches of pastel coloured icing and look like they’ve been transported from an artist’s easel or an ornate frame.

Watercolour cakes are an evolution of the ombré cake trend, says Reshmi Bennett, the head baker at Anges de Sucre in London. “It’s the ombré effect evolving in a different guise. It’s more forward and now and current,” Bennett says.

The cakes’ soothing tones are drawn from the changing seasons. “We get a lot of inspiration on Instagram,” she says. “It’s spring; people are posting photos of magnolia and wisteria.” Touches of gold - like gold leaf tiers or piping - add a more luxurious touch.

Australian cake blogger and author Lorraine Elliott - who blogs under the name Not Quite Nigella – has a basic watercolour cake tutorial on YouTube. Elliot ices layers of cakes with buttercream. Strawberry and chocolate buttercream is then piped out in stripes on the side and a spatula is used to smooth and blend the stripes out into a ‘patchwork of colour’ that melds with the original icing.

Marbles and Metals

Another chip off the ombré block are elegant ‘marble’ cakes - not to be confused with the classic marbled cakes - with icing in swirling, subtle patterns. Marble cakes feature tiers with icing in the same colour family, or in contrasting colours.

Asma Hassan, the lead designer at the Sugared Saffron Cake Studio in London, says the marble icing effect is one of the biggest trends this year along with gold leaf tiers. “People like the idea of having something that looks impressive, but still has a contemporary feel,” she says.

Hassan will be putting both trends to the test with a marble effect cake for a wedding this October. “The couple lives in Seattle and are getting married in a country house in Buckinghamshire that is just beautiful,” she shared. “Their cake is going to have a black tier, gold confetti, marble effect icing and wild style sugar flowers, so it's right up my street.”

Dip-dye cakes

The original ombré cake isn’t down and out yet. A cake with a gradient of coloured icing lends itself almost naturally to a wedding colour theme and perfect photos.

Bennett says she’s already seen a trend for ombré blush, which ties into the Pantone colours of the year that are often an inspiration point for wedding planners and couples.

The colour authority’s picks for 2016 are ‘Rose Quartz’ and ‘Serenity’ – shades of pale pink and blue – which can be translated into everything from the cake to the balloons.

Trending tastes

Salted caramel isn’t just for gourmet popcorn or pies: It’s a popular wedding cake flavour for the wedding season. This seemingly unconventional choice works for a couple of reasons. “It's a really tasty flavour that's great after a meal,” Hassan says. “And it sounds a bit foodie too.”

While food trends seemingly catch on in a manner of weeks – going from cult favourite to mainstream in weeks - wedding cake trends often have a lag time of a year. Since cakes are ordered six to eight months in advance of a wedding, red velvet cakes roll out at receptions by the time they’ve been replaced by Cronuts in cafes.

A photo posted by Dany McEwen (@margueritecakes) on May 6, 2016 at 5:41pm PDT

Some people still manage to jump on to the bandwagon in time for the wedding season: Marguerite Cakes recently made a wedding cake with two currently popular Asian ingredients: matcha and black sesame. Wedding cakes even feature spreads like Nutella and peanut butter.

Suzanne Brady of Dublin’s Cove Cake Design says that while clients in Ireland are becoming more adventurous with flavours, opting for choices like dark chocolate and Tonka Bean, they are also concerned about the source of ingredients. “I think clients now hold quality and provenance of ingredients in high regard, something which has developed huge importance in the food industry in Ireland in recent years,” Brady says.

Go Bare

Variations of the naked cake – a la a cake without frosted sides and made popular by the Momofuku Milk Bar in the United States – is in demand at weddings even though the cake trend has been around for a couple of years. “There is still a huge trend for buttercream finished cakes in 'naked' or 'semi-naked styles,'” says Brady. (The semi-naked cake has a thin layer of icing with the layers of cake still showing in places.)

But bakers like Brady are offering more upscale versions of the naked cakes. “We have been making sophisticated variations of these styles using techniques combining finishes such as sharp chocolate ganache and coconut ruffles with pristine naked or semi-naked buttercream.”

Fuelled by the demand for naked and semi-naked cakes, the use of buttercream icing is also on the rise. Bakers note that people now prefer buttercream-iced cakes over fondant covered ones.

“Buttercream also tastes a lot better than fondant,” says McEwen. “There is still a market for classic fondant wedding cakes; however, ideas are moulded around freshness. For example, people like fresh flowers and fresh fruit on their cakes."

The devil is in the details

It’s not just the icing or the flavours: The details make the cake. The faux chocolate drip detail is hugely popular, according to McEwen, as well as fresh flowers, seasonal fruit or berries, macarons and gold leaf. “Occasionally customers will ask for extra decorations such as meringue kisses, piping or hand crafted chocolate blocks,” she says.

And this year’s celebrity inspiration is Modern Family star Sofia Vergara’s five-tier Sylvia Weinstock-designed floral cake at her wedding to actor Joe Manganiello last year.

Other customised details on cakes include the couple’s initials, messages like ‘forever’, cut out hearts – and even a selection of mini-desserts: Anges de Sucre offers cakes with mini-doughnuts gracing the top and base.